IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB801728986

A case study in evolutionary contingency (2016)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 58
Pages: 82-92
Publication date: 2016
Language: English

DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.12.007

URI: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848615001806

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Experimental biology Microbiology History as a discipline; chronology; study of the past Contingency (philosophy) Evolution 21st century 20th century, late

Biological evolution is a fundamentally historical phenomenon in which intertwined stochastic and deterministic processes shape lineages with long, continuous histories that exist in a changing world that has a history of its own. The degree to which these characteristics render evolution historically contingent, and evolutionary outcomes thereby unpredictably sensitive to history has been the subject of considerable debate in recent decades. Microbial evolution experiments have proven among the most fruitful means of empirically investigating the issue of historical contingency in evolution. One such experiment is the Escherichia coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE), in which twelve populations founded from the same clone of E. coli have evolved in parallel under identical conditions. Aerobic growth on citrate (Cit+), a novel trait for E. coli, evolved in one of these populations after more than 30,000 generations. Experimental replays of this population's evolution from various points in its history showed that the Cit+ trait was historically contingent upon earlier mutations that potentiated the trait by rendering it mutationally accessible. Here I review this case of evolutionary contingency and discuss what it implies about the importance of historical contingency arising from the core processes of evolution.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB801728986

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Baron, Christian; (2011)
A Web of Controversies: Complexity in the Burgess Shale Debate (/p/isis/citation/CBB001220960/)

Article Peter Harrison; (2016)
What was historical about natural history? Contingency and explanation in the science of living things (/p/isis/citation/CBB972800240/)

Article Kim, Eun-Sung; (2008)
Directed Evolution: A Historical Exploration into an Evolutionary Experimental System of Nanobiotechnology, 1965--2006 (/p/isis/citation/CBB000932240/)

Article Suárez-Díaz, Edna; García-Deister, Vivette; (2015)
That 70s Show: Regulation, Evolution and Development beyond Molecular Genetics (/p/isis/citation/CBB001510253/)

Article Ian Hesketh; (2016)
Counterfactuals and history: Contingency and convergence in histories of science and life (/p/isis/citation/CBB385183310/)

Book Liane Carlson; (2019)
Contingency and the Limits of History: How Touch Shapes Experience and Meaning (/p/isis/citation/CBB575907621/)

Article John Beatty; (2016)
What are narratives good for? (/p/isis/citation/CBB867181599/)

Book Russell Winslow; (2017)
Organism and Environment: Inheritance and Subjectivity in the Life Sciences (/p/isis/citation/CBB178727188/)

Article Ellen Clarke; (2016)
Levels of Selection in Biofilms: Multispecies Biofilms Are Not Evolutionary Individuals (/p/isis/citation/CBB934389558/)

Article Jean-Michel Claverie; Chantal Abergel; (2016)
Giant viruses: The difficult breaking of multiple epistemological barriers (/p/isis/citation/CBB904529836/)

Article Goldenfeld, Nigel; Pace, Norman R.; (2013)
Carl R. Woese (1928--2012) (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320458/)

Chapter Sapp, Jan; (2008)
The Iconoclastic Research Program of Carl Woese (/p/isis/citation/CBB000960104/)

Article Bollinge, Laurel; (2010)
Symbiogenesis, Selfhood, and Science Fiction (/p/isis/citation/CBB001031068/)

Book Ian Hesketh; (2022)
Imagining the Darwinian Revolution: Historical Narratives of Evolution from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (/p/isis/citation/CBB117113747/)

Article Ard A. Louis; (2016)
Contingency, convergence and hyper-astronomical numbers in biological evolution (/p/isis/citation/CBB983912213/)

Article George R. McGhee; (2016)
Can evolution be directional without being teleological? (/p/isis/citation/CBB533310319/)

Article Leonore Fleming; Robert Brandon; (2015)
Why flying dogs are rare: A general theory of luck in evolutionary transitions (/p/isis/citation/CBB161586470/)

Book Frédéric Keck; (2020)
Avian Reservoirs: Virus Hunters and Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts (/p/isis/citation/CBB474416367/)

Article Patrick Forterre; (2016)
To be or not to be alive: How recent discoveries challenge the traditional definitions of viruses and life (/p/isis/citation/CBB294214713/)

Article Sommerlund, Julie; (2006)
Classifying Microorganisms: The Multiplicity of Classifications and Research Practices in Molecular Microbial Ecology (/p/isis/citation/CBB000780214/)